[Wilmer offers a restrospective view of The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, and points out its limitations.]

[Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War: 1916-1919,] has been republished in a handsome limited edition by the British Medical Association because of its present significance. It is a pioneering effort in applied social psychology. It offers insight into the world of today, threatened by the competing herd instincts of different nations, and within it societies gone awry, with actual and potential horrendous consequences.

Trotter's idealistic conclusion that reason and disciplined intelligence will bring about peace or resolution of the herd instinct problems of nations is doubtful. Bearing in mind what is now known about the power of the unconscious and the limitations of reason, disciplined rational thought appears as only one step. Since Trotter wrote this book and its addendum in 1919, there have been World War II, with the loss of 55 million lives, and 140 other wars, with more being spawned all the time.

Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War went through 14 printings from 1916 to 1953, when the third edition was published by the Oxford University Press. The idea of the gregariousness of man and the consequent herd instinct was first published in an article by Trotter in 1905. One of the remarkable facts in an increasingly specialized world is that Trotter was one of the greatest surgeons of his day, a surgeon to three successive monarchs who published significant research in surgery, and a famous teacher, but neither a sociologist nor a psychiatrist.

Trotter's main contribution was proposing that the herd instinct be added to the other three generally accepted instincts: self-preservation, sex, and nourishment. The power of cooperation, intercommunication, and specialization are the proposed compelling forces in coping with the destructive nature of the herd instinct. Trotter met Freud once in 1908 and did not see him again until Freud escaped to London, where Trotter was his physician until his death. Trotter was critical of Freud's tendency toward absolute explanations, his emphasis on individual psychology, and his neglect of the comparative method.

According to Trotter, the herd instinct is based on man's essential gregariousness and is evident in human society in three forms: the protective, the socialized, and the aggressive; these forms can be compared with the sheep, the bee, and the wolf. He cites the beehive as the fullest development of the social herd instinct and compares it with England. He compares Germany with the wolf. (It is interesting to note that the German submarine groups in World War II were called “wolf packs.”) These concepts were developed during the first 12 months of World War II, and his perspective as an Englishman carries a prejudice, which he acknowledges, evaluates, and attempts to take into consideration. This requires a herculean effort, and I am not certain that Trotter accomplished it.

He argues his case with exquisite and sophisticated logic in a dialectical style. The eloquent rhetoric of his passionate feelings and the sparks from his brilliant mind create a problem for me, in light of his explicit position that the then-emerging fields of applied psychology and sociology were in need of meticulous scientific attitudes. I found myself alternately swayed and antagonized by his exposition. Nevertheless, his comparative and transpersonal view transcends some of the limitations of Freudian theory and bears some resemblance to the archetypal and comparative concepts of Jung, with their biologic roots. Apparently Trotter was not conversant with Jungian concepts, which he does not mention.

I have not the slightest doubt that his position ultimately reflects the highest aspirations of mankind and is a clear attempt to bring humanity out of its destructive segregation, greed, prejudice, power, and boundary obsessions. These ideals seem both profound and unrealizable in the world as it is. The humanistic scientific motif is reflected in the introduction by Douglas Holdstock, who concludes:

We can, and must, become no longer competing herds but one species. There is no guarantee that we will succeed, and the prospects may be worse than when Trotter wrote in the first World War or indeed when he died at the onset of the second. If there is a third, its recording may be left to archeologists from another planet. But if there are human historians writing in a hundred years time, they may well regard this book as a vital contribution to the evolution of a saner and safer society.

There is a certain unsettling ambiguity in Holdstock's words, for it is not clear that future historians would come from another planet, in which case the judgment becomes a non sequitur.

While Trotter compares the German nation with the wolf pack and the dog (proposing that a sound thrashing would instill a sense of defeat as the only way of learning) and the English with the bee, he does not forget the limited mental power and the boundary myopia of the bee. The ethology of 1916 was limited. The argument by analogy and the anthropomorphism of the animal/man model have obvious limitations. The analogy has an unrepressible collective power, however, for now we are told that the western world is threatened by the Russian bear.

Another limitation of Trotter's thesis is his designation of the leaders of nations as being either “stable” or “unstable” mental types. This dichotomy may lead to misunderstanding, since by “stable” he means rigid, unyielding, fixed, overly confident persons who “know where they stand” and are inaccessible to new and strange phenomena, even though they may be kind, generous, and highly intelligent. He observes that such “stable” mental types naturally rise to power in nations as politicians and officials, and increase the focus on boundaries, segregation, fragmentation, and splitting the herd into national and antinational factions. Trotter prefers the model of the leaders as shepherd. The “unstable” mental types are the opposite of the “stable” and are postulated as the preferred type. Since common opinion recognizes what Trotter labeled the “unstable” mental type as normal, this typology becomes confusing.

The author's insight into the herd instinct emerged in the context of war. He saw the positive elements of war creating the solidarity of a nation, but only when war was perceived as a real danger and threat to the nation, that is, to the whole herd. Americans can see the solidarity after Pearl Harbor and the divisiveness of Vietnam in this light.

Trotter argues the case for altruism, intercommunication, sympathy of the herd outside the biologic unit and boundaries, religion, pacifism, and moral homogeneity. A deleted part of the preface Trotter had written in 1915 is included in the appendix:

Whether the general level of consciousness will reach the height necessary to give a decisive predominance to constructive tendencies and whether such a development will occur in time to save western civilization from the fate of its predecessors are open to question. The small segment of social process of which we have direct knowledge in the events of the day has no very encouraging appearance. Segregation has reasserted itself effectively; the dominance of the stable and resistive mind is as firmly established as ever and not less dull and dangerous; while it is plain how far, in the atmosphere of relaxation and fatigue, the social inspiration of the common man has sunk from the high constancy of spirit by which throughout the long pilgrimage of war so many weary feet have been upborne, so many dry lips refreshed.